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Teaching Chords To
Beginning Guitar Students
by Tom Hess
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A very common and frustrating problem beginning guitar students face is not
being able to change chords quickly, fluently and musically. This may be frustrating
for you, the guitar teacher, too, when you are not sure about how to solve the
problem.
There can be more than one reason why a student may struggle when trying to
change chords smoothly. So the first thing to do when dealing with this challenge
is to diagnose why the problem exists. You need to determine if your student
has one of the following problems:
- A physical coordination problem
- He/she has not been practicing
- A lack of understanding of what needs to be done
- A mental processing problem
Most guitar teachers ASSUME the reason is either A. (a physical coordination problem)
or B. (little or no practice). Fact is, most of the time this is wrong. The majority
of students actually DO attempt to practice. And TRUE physical coordination problems
are rare.
For most guitar students almost all guitar playing problems are caused by their
brains, not by their hands! This is why many efforts to help them may not work
well.
As I mentioned before, there can many reasons why a student is struggling with
this (or any other issue) so it is not possible to give a one-size-fits-all solution
in an article. There are however 3 powerful guitar teaching tips that can help
solve this problem with beginning guitar students.
#1. Get your students to keep their strumming hand moving IN TIME no matter how
far behind the fretting hand may be in forming the next chord. In other words,
tell your students (when practicing this way) to NOT allow the strumming hand
to wait on the fretting hand! Practicing in this way will solve a lot of other
rhythm and timing problems in the future for this student! The student should
practice this way about 1/3 of the time until the problem is resolved.
#2. Get your student to not use the strumming hand at all and simply change chords
with the fretting hand quickly (rapid fire, one after another). The student should
practice this way about 1/3 of the time until the problem is resolved.
#3. Make your student play a chord he/she needs to master. Tell him/her to grip
the strings hard when playing the chord, then to relax totally (WITHOUT taking
fingers away from the strings/chord), then tell the student to SQUEEZE again all
fingers at the same time! Then relax.
The goal here is to train his/her brain to make all fingers move and relax TOGETHER
and not one finger at a time (which is how beginning guitar students make chords
on their own – big mistake)… Repeat this exercise until the student
can do it well.
Next, have the student move fingers off the strings but maintain the basic chord
shape while hovering over the strings…. Then press down on the strings and
make the chord… repeat this many times and then gradually move further and
further away from the strings before making the chord again. Eventually from an
open hand the student should be able to form the chord easily… but in each
case you MUST be sure all fingers are moving and relaxing at the same time, NOT
one finger at a time! The student should practice this way about 1/3 of the time
until the problem is resolved.
Notice that these solutions of the problem are all ‘physical’, but
they are designed to overcome the student's “mental processing problem”
because the student has not learned to separate and isolate each motion. The beginning
guitar student's brain is overloaded with too much information to apply at the
same time, this is why we work on method #1 and #2 above to free the brain from
too much processing at once. The last method (#3) is designed in order to break
the student’s mental processing habit of sending SEPARATE and LINEAR messages
to each finger of the hand. What we want is to train the brain to process and
send ONE message to all fingers involved.
To get more help on teaching guitar and building a successful guitar teaching
business, check out these 15 free guitar
teaching tips.
About the author: Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher,
professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He coaches other guitar teachers
on how to teach
guitar.
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About Tom Hess
Tom Hess is a professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He teaches, trains and mentors musicians from around the world. Visit http://www.tomhess.net to discover highly effective music learning resources, guitar lessons, music career mentoring, and tools including free online assessments, surveys, mini courses and more.
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